Reflections on culture and ideas by author and illustrator Christopher Taylor

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Thursday, July 25, 2013

THE MUSLIM APPROACH

" think we’ve got a unique opportunity to reboot America’s image around the world and also in the Islamic world in particular."-Barack Obama

If you consider all of the things the Obama administration has done in regard to Islam and Muslims, it is easy to see how people can get the idea that he's some double secret crypto-Muslim.

President Obama has falsely claimed that the Jefferson administration held special Iftar dinners for visiting Muslim dignitaries. He diverted NASA funds from space missions to Muslim outreach. He's upset the Muslim Brotherhood was thrown from power in Egypt, calling it a coup. He's praised Turkey's new more Muslim-controlled government, He strongly defended and supported the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, He's shown a cool distance toward Israel and criticized construction in areas it controls, and so on.

From all this (and much more, such as bowing to the Saudi king, being registered as a Muslim in schools as a child, etc) some insist that the president is a Muslim but pretends to be Christian. As I've written before, however, I don't think president Obama is either; I think he worships himself, if anyone, and is only vaguely religious.

To understand what's going on here and why he's doing it, I think it helps to look back to 9/11 and the reaction of the left. Within minutes of the news breaking, there were leftists saying "we had it coming after all we've done to the Muslims!" And while the voices were subdued, they built in strength and now its pretty well said without fear of being punched in the teeth.

The argument they gave was that over the years bombing, military action, and general hostility toward Muslim-controlled nations resulted in building hostility and anger and it boiled over into terrorism toward the US. They argued it was wrong, but well you can't really blame them, right?

Now, this reading of history is a bit distorted, and it leaves out the roots of terrorism and Soviet influence over the decades before the collapse of the USSR among Muslims, but they have some slight shred of fact here.

It is the perception among Muslims that America is horrible and wrong largely because of the strong support its given Israel over the years and the way it has intervened in nations like Lebanon. America was part of the coalition that attacked Muslim strongholds in the Mediterranean in the early 1800s (with England - where the "shores of Tripoli" line comes from in the Marine Hymn). America invaded Iraq and bombed Libya. The list of complaints before 2001 weren't entirely without basis, but they were a bit confused.

America and England attacked Tripoli because Muslims were charging tribute to prevent pirate raids on shipping which took slaves. And the tribute didn't even give very good protection, it only slightly reduced the raids. America invaded Iraq in response to a request from Kuwait, a Muslim nation. America bombed Libya because of the links to Khadaffi in the earlier Lebanon embassy bombing and because it was harboring terrorists who killed Americans.

But that's not how the Muslims saw it, and so grievances built up over these and many other instances. Resentment and feelings of weakness and inadequacy, stacked on top of tyrants blaming Israel and the US (great satan) for all the ills of the people they oppressed contributed to the mythology.

So when the terrorists attacked the USA, they thought they had plenty of reason. And after the invasion of Iraq, they believe they have even more, especially since they believe the more outrageous and ridiculous casualty numbers given by organizations like Lancet.

THE PLAN

So why the outreach and bowing to Islam by President Obama? Because he believes that we can change all that, clean the slate, and what's more benefit from starting over. President Obama is acting on a strategy formulated by leftist thinkers over the years, and I suspect taught to him by people like Susan Rice in his administration.

It works like this: if we can convince Muslims we aren't their enemy, show them we're friends, oppose what they dislike, repudiate previous actions by America, and reach out to them, then we can end the hostility.

Further, if we have Muslim nations on our side, we won't need allies like England who offer us little other than manpower and intelligence. We'll have allies with strategic resources in hot spots around the world, allies who we can rely on to help us when problems erupt in their area rather than resent and hate us.

And finally, the theory is that terrorism will stop, because these nations won't be filled with people who view us as enemies, and the left is convinced against all evidence that terrorism is a home-brewed result of poor people's frustration and helplessness.

This is driven by old leftist "white guilt" which presumes oppression by white Europeans and innocence or at least reasonable reaction by the oppressed non-Europeans. The presumption is that these Muslims are minorities mistreated for centuries by evil white European males, and that if we end that cycle, they will end their response of violence and anger.

So pulling away from historical, long-term allies like England makes sense in this scheme. So does pulling away from Israel and cooling relations with them, as Israel's very existence is a sore spot for many Muslims. The fact that President Obama personally holds animosity toward England only helps make this easier.

Now, history teaches us otherwise - it was absolutely the aggression of Muslims which swept over Europe and charged tribute across the oceans, and Europeans reacted to that in defense, but actual history is a sort of "hatefact" that gets in the way of the narrative.

So the truth is, these actions have a sort of logic and consistency in them. They're mistaken and flawed, but so has been a lot of policy (like backing Hussein and Khadaffi to fight communism in the past). It won't work because the hate goes too deep, you'd have to wipe Israel out to really satisfy too many radical Muslims, and because the big enemy of the US is too useful to tyrants in the middle east to give up.

And further, even if it had a shot of working, it wouldn't stop terrorism, because that kind of activity isn't based on logic and reason, but hate and demented radical religion. But at least you can see a pattern and make sense of what the Obama white house is doing if you understand it in these terms.
Shorter version: President Obama isn't a closet Muslim, he has a cunning plan.